New Studio Design (Wall Construction)

[ChewieParticipant]

Hi John & Warren,

I am planning to build a small multi use studio for rehearsing, recording, and mixing. The space I have available is roughly 25’x17′. Two of the walls are parallel (the longest sides) and built as part of the existing structure. I will be building the other 2 adjacent walls. In those walls I would need a door and potentially a window but if this is hard to construct I could omit it.
So my question would be the wall system, what would cut the most dbs, a 2×6 single wall with sound insulation from the home store plus drywall or similar material, or 2 – 2×4 walls with a space between them? I am looking for the most economical way of achieving the cost to db cut ratio (if that makes sense).
I also have the option of making a trapezoid at the sacrifice of some space. Would this be better? What would be the ideal way for a door system?

Sorry that’s a lot of questions! Thanks in advance.

Andy.

[John BrandtParticipant]

Chewie,

I answered this on the other thread, but just in case I'm posting it here too. 🙂

A decoupled wall will always out-perform a single wall system for sound-proofing purposes.

It’s best to determine precisely what you need because more isolation = more cost. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ when it comes to studio isolation.

Kindly go to my resources page and download “How To Find How Much Isolation You Need”. I think that will answer all of your questions. To find out how well certain wall systems perform, you can also download the ‘ir761’ which shows all the testing data for many types of frame walls.
Cheers,
John

[Author]

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